Meat Puppets’ second album is well done

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 8:42 a.m.

Growing up in Phoenix, I could easily have been a Meat Puppets fan from an early age.

Granted, I was a tad young to appreciate the trio during their early-to-mid-'80s heyday. But considering we shared the same hometown, it wouldn't have been difficult to catch a live appearance or two at some all-ages club.

Instead, like most other music fans around the world, I remained blissfully unfamiliar with the Meat Puppets' work until Nirvana's "Unplugged in New York" MTV concert in 1993.

Two-thirds of the Meat Puppets -- brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood -- appeared onstage with the red-hot Seattle outfit, performing three tracks off their landmark album, "Meat Puppets II."

Those renditions, sung by longtime Puppets fan Kurt Cobain, remain some of my favorite cuts in the Nirvana catalog. But the originals are also well worth seeking out, as is the remainder of the Meat Puppets' second full-length CD.

Listening to "Meat Puppets II," it's hard to believe the band worked almost exclusively with hardcore punk rock until that point.

The 1984 release's 12 original tracks -- along with seven bonus cuts added for Rykodisc's 1999 re-release -- make a case for the Arizona trio as one of the most original and influential rock bands of the past two decades.

There's a laid-back, slacker quality to the music, a sound picked up on by Nirvana and indie-rockers such as Pavement during the 1990s.

Two of the album's three primo instrumentals -- "Aurora Borealis" and "I'm a Mindless Idiot" -- roll along like lazy tumbleweeds, while the third, "Magic Toy Missing," has a spaghetti western feel to it.

At the same time, the Meat Puppets have a definite sense of urgency. They push the tempo on the punky "Split Myself in Two" and "New Gods," and Curt Kirkwood's vocals sound positively tortured when he sings "Where do bad folks go when they die? / They don't go to heaven where the angels fly" at the start of the classic "Lake of Fire."

If you're already a fan of Nirvana, odds are you'll also enjoy the Meat Puppets, from whom Cobain unabashedly copped many of his songwriting techniques and vocal phrasings.

Don't be surprised, though, if after a few listens to "Meat Puppets II" you find yourself delving deeper through that band's catalog, and pushing your Nirvana discs farther back on your racks.

Artist: Meat Puppets.

Title: "Meat Puppets II."

Year of release: 1984 (reissued 1999, Rykodisc).

Tracklisting: "Split Myself in Two," "Magic Toy Missing," "Lost," "Aurora Borealis," "We're Here," "Climbing," "New Gods," "Oh, Me," "Lake of Fire," "I'm a Mindless Idiot," "The Whistling Song." Bonus tracks: "Teenager(s)," "I'm Not Here," "New Gods," "Lost," "What to Do," "100% of Nothing," "Aurora Borealis."